GSA close to releasing final RFP for OASIS

Jason Miller, executive editor, Federal News Radio

The General Services Administration in the next three weeks will release the final
solicitations for the $60 billion OASIS and OASIS small business multiple award
contracts for complex professional services.

As GSA nears this milestone, the discussion of whether the government needs
another large multiple award contract again comes to the forefront.

Current and former federal acquisition officials say it's difficult to determine
if there are too many multiple award contracts (MACs), but they did agree there is
duplication within agencies and across the government.

Dan Gordon, associate dean, George Washington University law school.

"The real question is interagency contracts and interagency acquisition versus
single agency acquisition," said Dan Gordon, former administrator of the Office of
Federal Procurement Policy, and now associate dean at the George Washington
University law school. "When I took the OFPP job, there was a mantra that we had
too many interagency contracts. The more I studied it, the more I became convinced
we needed more interagency contracts. The real question isn't is it good to have
five or 10 governmentwide acquisition contracts, the real question is would it be
better, would you have less duplication if you had 250 agency specific contracts?
In my opinion, GWACs and interagency contracts in general are much better for
reducing duplication than single agency and especially single component
contracts."

Part of the problem is no one knows how many MACs agencies run. Bill Woods, the
director of acquisition sourcing management at the Government Accountability
Office, said there is no data on just how many non-GWAC multiple award contracts
exist or who runs them.

OFPP has tried several times over the last decade to create a database of multiple
award contracts but has fallen short.

Business case requirement

Woods, who along with Gordon and others spoke at the Multiple Award Government and
Industry Conference in Alexandria, Va., sponsored by the Partnership for
Procurement Excellence, said without that data and transparency, it's hard to say
if there are too many or how many are offering similar or the same services.

Gordon said this lack of transparency and data is behind the requirement for an
agency to get its business case approved before moving forward with a new multiple
award contract.

Gordon released a memo in September 2011 mandating agencies submit a
business case for all new MACs or those they want to renew worth more than $100
million over the life of the vehicle. The requirement for a business case drops to
$50 million in fiscal 2014.

Gordon said the business case requirement was one way to reign in the explosion of
MACs.

Jim Ghiloni, the director of the OASIS program management office, said GSA plans on issuing both final requests for
proposals for the OASIS contract for complex professional services by the end of
July, or early August at the latest.

"There are a couple of things that are getting some 'T's' being crossed and 'I's'
being dotted this week and meetings being scheduled that will give me a better
sense of whether we will be able to hit July," he said. "At this point, there is
nothing coming that if it does lapse out, it's going to be much more than a week
or so into August. It's coming. The final will be out for a month, and we will
announce awards in October. That's what we are shooting for."

Agencies committed to OASIS

Ghiloni, who spoke later in the day at the conference, said GSA is planning
another 90 days after award for a protest. He said he expects to get a
solicitation protest or an award protest, but not both.

"This is why we said actual work, order, notice to proceed, will be second quarter
fiscal 2014 so sometimes January to March before things are up and running," he
said.

Ghiloni said agencies are anxiously waiting for the contract. He said GSA already
has a commitment from the Air Force to spend $500 million through OASIS for
professional services.

Jim Ghiloni, director, OASIS program management office, GSA

And the market across government is large. GSA estimated agencies spent more than
$60 billion on professional services in fiscal 2012, including 13 agencies that
have spent more than $1 billion a year since 2010.

But as GSA gets closer to the releasing the final RFP, there's a growing concern in industry.

While Ghiloni didn't attend the dinner, he tried to put the expression of concern
that came out in some perspective.

"I understand as we get closer to releasing the final RFPs that companies that
have been tracking this for a while and seeing it change and evolve over time may
have developed expectations or hopes that somehow we would change things that
would enable them to bid when they are otherwise not qualified to do so based on
the current pass-fails and such," he said. "I understand as we get close to final,
hope begins to die and tempers begin to rise there will be some tumult.
Unfortunately, we can't make everyone happy. It's not our job to make everyone
happy. We can't and won't award to everybody who's interested. It's not what the
program is about."

Ghiloni emphasized GSA's goal of having on-ramps throughout the life of the
contract.

"This program is not going to lock down for 10 years," he said. "There will be
fluidity in the contractor pool over time."

GSA expects to make awards to 40 vendors in each of the six pools that make up
OASIS. Ghiloni said he expects overlap in many of the awards, especially under the
full and open contract.

The on-ramps will work two ways:

Small businesses that grow out of their size standard at the five-year
point will have the opportunity to move to the full and open contract
automatically as long as they meet the minimum qualifications. Ghiloni said those
companies would have to submit a bid with updated information as part of the on-
ramp process.

If GSA decides it's not getting enough competition in a particular functional
pool, such as if GSA consistently gets only one or two vendors to bid on a certain
type of task order. Then, GSA will announce it will make an additional number of
awards in that pool and open it to bids. The new companies again have to meet the
minimum set of qualifications.

The use of on-ramps is a growing trend in government.

Dick Ginman, the Defense Department's director of Defense Procurement and
Acquisition Policy, said he's encouraging on-ramps and off-ramps for military
services and agencies.

"If you are competent to do the work, you have the technical capability to do the
work, you have good past performance and you are a financially viable firm, I'd
give you a contract," he said. "It is my personal opinion and as strategies come
to me for review, I'd much prefer to rather go through this two-year drill to
decide we will restrict to 10, why not award to the 20 companies who are competent
to do the work? Because three or four years from now, when I go to run a task
order, the person who lost the competition is now not eligible to me because they
are not one of the holders."

Ginman said this is why he'd like to see agencies move away from large kitchen-
sink type of multiple award contracts.

Time to evolve MACs?

By awarding to all vendors who are qualified, agencies would have more competition
at the task order level instead of the limited competition they have now.

During Ginman, Woods and Gordon's panel, Stan Soloway, the president of the
Professional Services Council, asked whether the government should reconsider how
it develops IT and services contracts because of major changes. Soloway, who
moderated the discussion, pointed to the facts that over the last five years the
government shifted to buying more complex and high dollar IT and services through
task orders, and vendors now have the ability to protest task orders.

GAO's Woods said market forces should take care of that evolution, meaning
agencies will buy and vendors will sell differently.

But it's unclear whether that's happening.

Ginman said that sort of change happens because of only one reason.

"At the end of the day from my standpoint this is driven by not the contract type,
not how I am going to do it, but telling me what the requirement is," he said. "If
I don't have a vehicle in place that meets that requirement, then I will create a
new vehicle to meet that requirement."

Of course, that also can lead to a proliferation of new MACs as agencies tend to
believe they have unique requirements.